On the latest Inside The Huddle podcast, which you can listen to in the player below, Neil Reynolds, Jeff Reinebold and Brian Baldinger also discuss Matt Patricia's firing in Detroit and look at which other coaches are on the hot seat...
Friday 4 December 2020 14:19, UK
Is the NFL heading towards the possibility of a 'playoff bubble' after a spike in coronavirus cases in the league and across the country?
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said the league is weighing up new safety protocols for the postseason but rejected the idea of playing in a 'bubble', with former NFL offensive lineman Brian Baldinger telling Inside The Huddle - which you can listen to as a podcast below - "I just don't think it's practical right now, or conceivable".
Numerous NFL games have been delayed during the season due to players testing positive for Covid-19, including most recently the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers clash that was originally scheduled for Thanksgiving Thursday before being postponed three times to the following Wednesday.
The NBA completed their 2019-2020 season within a bubble at Disney World, Florida, amid the coronavirus pandemic, but Baldinger doesn't believe the NFL is equipped to follow suit.
"Everything should be on the table to be discussed," Baldinger said. "It worked in the NBA, in baseball. But football is different, there are just so many other people involved.
"First of all, if the practise squad players are travelling, you've got over 60 players, and then you've got personnel, electronics - a lot of data that has to be plugged in - a whole health staff and training staff.
"There's so much more involved than the NBA or baseball, that I just don't think it's real practical.
"Because of the way this virus is gaining steam right now, they may be forced to do that - and maybe they do get to that point - but I just don't think it's practical right now, or conceivable. I just don't think they'll be able to get it done."
Jeff Reinebold, a coach in the Canadian Football League for the last eight years, added weight to Baldinger's argument, saying the practicalities of a player bubble were what caused the 2020 CFL season to be cancelled.
"It really cost us the season, because of the realities of football - just as Brian talked about," he said. "There are so many more moving parts, so many more people you have to account for; it is like going on safari, when you try to take a football team on the road.
"You want to have your own bubble to keep all of those people underneath one roof, like the NBA did? In the NBA you're dealing with maybe 13 players and 20 support staff; in the NFL, each team you're probably dealing with 200 people!"
Reinebold does, however, think the teams could be tempted to each individually go into a bubble by all staying at a hotel as the season progresses and the possibility of a playoff run increases.
"The [New Orleans] Saints went away in preseason and created their own bubble," Reinebold added. "I think teams, individually, may look at it and say, 'this is our shot for the Super Bowl, we've got to keep our guys healthy'.
"The owner will write the cheque and teams will go into a bubble."
Despite concerns over further coronavirus cases and still the threat of more games being postponed or even cancelled, Baldinger praised the NFL for what they've been able to achieve so far through the first 12 weeks of the season.
In total, 156 players and 270 personnel have had confirmed Covid-19 cases since the start of the league's monitoring testing period from August 1 through November 28, according to data provided on Wednesday, with more than 700,000 tests being administered.
"They've done a phenomenal job to get to this point; between the contact tracing, the daily testing, all the precautions - closing facilities, moving to Zoom calls," Baldinger said.
"There are teams right now where the players literally come in just to practice. All the meetings beforehand, the preparation before and after is all done at home via Zoom - you literally come in for two hours, train and leave. You don't even shower there.
"They're taking every precaution possible, learning as they go. They want to get all 256 games in, they're dead set on that and so are heavily penalising teams that aren't following protocols.
"The Seattle Seahawks haven't had one single player test positive yet - not one! So some teams are taking this very serious.
"Pete Carroll, one of the older coaches, it probably started with him and how he approached this, not wanting to be one of those people to test positive that is in that range age-wise that is in the danger zone.
"Some teams have just been better at it than others, but I think as we go forward, teams better adhere to all of the policies put in place."
Also on this week's Inside The Huddle, Baldinger looked at whether Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson is on the hot seat after a couple of disappointing years since the team's Super Bowl win.
The Eagles are 3-7-1 this season, but Baldinger thinks it would be a mistake to let Pederson go, saying: "I don't think you fire a guy just because one year isn't going well and the quarterback [Carson Wentz] isn't playing well. I think he survives this."
And finally, Baldinger discusses the Detroit Lions' decision to fire head coach Matt Patricia after their Thanksgiving Day defeat to the Houston Texans which dropped them to 4-7.
Patricia's record during his three years in Detroit was a hugely disappointing 13-29-1, and Baldinger believes the team owners, the Ford family, "simply had enough".
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